landmark

How does TrailRunner mini import and export the GPX file format

The GPX file format (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_Exchange_Format) is an open standard that describes geographic information.
Within that format there is a conceptual difference between three types of point information:

  • Track-Points: this is a raw recording representing a course. TrailRunner mini creates track-points as a result of a calculated route (the course you see on the map)
  • Route-Points: : this represents a stop point on a route and is represented as a transit location (routing pin) in TrailRunner mini. Given two transit locations, TrailRunner mini calculates a track between these using the OpenStreetMap Network.
  • Way-Points: this represents a landmark in TrailRunner mini.

Whenever you export files from external sources and import them in TrailRunner mini, try to keep the data straight within the expectations of TrailRunner mini. Some applications may export tracks as a series of wpt-tags which leads to serious misunderstandings within TrailRunner mini.

There are some type conversion tools out there that may help. Like http://www.gpsbabel.org

When you export routes in the GPX format to be displayed on other devices, the same applies. Some apps may not make a difference between track/route and way-points and may display all at the same time. To avoid this, you most likely want to export your route containing trackPoints only.

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Read more:
What are landmarks and waypoints?



What are Region Collections

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Region Collections display small count markers on the map that represent multiple routes being located in that region.

You can click on one of those markers and get a detail view with all contained routes and landmarks displayed in an overview map.

Selecting one of the routes in the left list will zoom the map to display that route. To return back to an aspect where you again can see Region Collection markers on the map, click the globe icon in the map controls.

When you choose to Show Routes in that region, the left list of routes is filtered to display these routes for you to explore.
You can remove that filter by choosing Show All in the top toolbar item for Route Collections.

Please note that Region Collections are an extended feature and that you can only use one for free. Full region collections require a one time in app purchase that lets you explore as many Region Collections as being displayed on the map.



What are dynamic collections?

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Dynamic Collections are a way to create route collections that automatically update their contents based on a set of rules. For example this cloud be:
Collection of all biking routes with a distance of 60 - 120 km and less than 1000 meter of ascent and nearby a specific landmark like the parking spot you usually start from.

To create a Dynamic Collection like the above, click on the collections toolbar icon and in the action menu select New Dynamic Collection.
Within the rules editor, build a configuration like this:

To better identify your collection (besides the name) you may set a color for the icon displayed in the collections menu. Also you can define in which order the collected routes are sorted.

Please note that Dynamic Collections are an extended feature and that you can only create one for free. Additional dynamic collections require a one time in app purchase that lets you create as many dynamic collections as you need.



What are landmarks and waypoints?

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Introduction: Landmarks in TrailRunner mini can be:
  • Just a geographic bookmark (or point of interest) you can set for yourself. Add landmarks to easily jump to a location by selecting the landmark in the landmarks popover.
  • A shortcut for routing. Within this context a landmark becomes a waypoint.
As the prior is pretty simple to understand, the latter requires some explanations.

Route and Landmarks. The following quick tutorial shows how you start a new route from an existing landmark. Then, during routing, the tutorial shows how a new landmark is being added and how the route returns to the point where you have started.



Please note that the route created used two intermediate transit location pins to direct the routing over the specific course of the demo.
So it's basically a route from the starting landmark over a transit pin to the newly created signpost landmark over a second transit pin and back to the starting landmark. (Expert users could have used the roundtrip setting in the left route planning pane to omit the last step)

Landmark Intelligence. When you connect two landmarks (even by placing intermediate transit location pins) TrailRunner mini remembers the course you have chosen to reach a landmark outgoing from a previous landmark. After this has happened (and as soon as you create a route that follows the same course of landmarks) TrailRunner mini will be able to directly connect the two landmarks — based on the memorized course. No intermediate transit locations required. The second quick tutorial shows how that happens:



Shortest vs. favored. If you are not very accustomed to how routing without landmarks works, just realize that routing in TrailRunner mini uses the shortest path to reach one transit location to another. But that's typically not what you want. So what happens is that you are always compelled to insert intermediate transit locations until the course matches your intention. Now as landmarks remember their connections to other landmarks, this manual correction is only required once. So what you could do now is that you place some hot locations on your map (that you regularly come along during your workout courses) and TrailRunner mini will automatically connect these with the courses you planned in the past — and not the course that is shortest.

Offroad-Routing. The other effect that comes in useful is that landmark to landmark courses can contain off-road transit locations. So whenever the underlying map source is incomplete, just layout an off-road course between two landmarks and TrailRunner mini will extend the map coverage by your means.

Offline-Routing. As landmarks memorize their past connections to other landmarks in the map, no network requests are being fired to route between two such landmarks. This effectively gives you limited off-line routing.

Export and Import. Routes created in TrailRunner mini that make use of landmarks will contain these as waypoints in exported GPX files. Importing GPX files containing waypoints (wpt-tag) will also import these as landmarks. To learn more about the GPS eXchange Format, read its wikipedia article.

Summary. That's basically all you need to know about landmarks in TrailRunner mini. To learn more, check out the additional information provided in the landmarks popover, next to the landmark attributes.

Live or let die. Please note that I create TrailRunner mini in my spare-time. So if you have feedback and questions, contact me directly via application feedback. If you like TrailRunner mini, please spend some stars on the AppStore review. Have fun.